Troika
by Mme Bahorel
Summary: [The Coast of Utopia trilogy,Tom Stoppard] Ivan Turgenev and Nicholas Stankevich meet in Rome and conduct the first important relationship in Turgenev's life.
1. Ivan

Turgenev pulled a face - why must the curative waters taste of iron and shit? - and turned to the pale, thin young man at the next table. "Must a cure always be unpalatable?" he asked, semi-rhetorically, in Italian.

"I do believe it must," the young man answered in the same language. With a crafty expression, he switched to Russian, obviously his native tongue. "After all, the waters of the Caucasus are only half so vile, thus they effect no cure at all."

"Another Russian, thank god!" Turgenev's light voice, rising with excitement, took on an almost braying timbre. "I shan't have to make poor excuses to you. Do I really speak Italian so villainously?" He rushed ahead without a pause for the man to reply. "Ivan Turgenev."

"Nicholas Stankevich. A Russian will always sound Russian wherever he goes because in our system, we are kept ignorant of the way men talk but are still expected to learn their languages."

"Are we always to be 'certain people' when we go abroad?"

"Careful - the man at the next table could be an informant."

"We are in Italy, you know."

"Even in Italy. You know what Chaadaev received for his pains writing that article and Nadezhdin for publishing it. One dares to call us 'certain people', and one ends up either legally insane or in exile. I'm loath to join them. I do prefer the comforts of Italy to the certain death of the Urals."

"The Urals are bears, Bushmen, and provincial governors. Only in Russia does exile take place within one's own country. They manage to leach all the romance from the very word. It is no wonder we have no literature - the tsars have leached the meaning from our very words! But I suppose one could do very good genre work in exile - tales of country life and peasant mores. But one can't be a poet, not a real one. Any idiot who can count syllables can write a poem in the country, or even in prison," Turgenev added.

"You have read too much of Belinsky."

"Hardly! There isn't enough to read, the _Observer_ is so infrequent, even more so than the _Telegraph_ was."

"He's ill, and alone." Stankevich paused to cough into a linen handkerchief, a hard, wracking cough.

Turgenev waited until he was finished. "You know him?"

"Everyone in Moscow knows him. Most of them don't know he lives alone, above a blacksmith's, next door to a laundry, killing himself through overwork, cold, hunger, and pride. And genius. We mustn't forget the decaying power of genius."

"I suppose I'm immune to that Moloch myself, not being one of his children. I was a wretched poet."

"So was Belinsky."

"Did you ever read the infamous verse?"

"With 5,000 souls to my father's name? He never let anyone read it. I think he burned it," Stankevich added regretfully. "Everyone is rubbish at eighteen, but he still should have known better. The censor is the only person of whom he is not terrified."

"That lack of fear is what makes him such a beacon. He could have students at his feet if he wanted them. Paying students. I could arrange it, if he is as hard up as you say."

Stankevich shook his head. "It would never do. Russia's first middle-class intellectual. He wouldn't stand the adulation. It's not fitting. Besides, he speaks as coherently as he writes."

"That's a shame."

"We called him 'Raging Vissarion' at the philosophical circle, and it had nothing to do with his writing at the time. At that point, he was translating Paul de Kock with the use of my dictionary. The philosophical circle seems a lifetime away, and I only left Russia three years ago."

"So you are the Stankevich! The man who introduced Hegel to Russia!"

"You profess to be a student of Hegel?" Stankevich asked tiredly.

Turgenev plowed on without regard to his companion's tone. "I am a student of Hegel! Not some aristocratic girl who has tired of Baratynski and George Sand and thinks the German philosophy the latest fad. I'm going to Berlin next month, should my bladder decide to accept being cured." He glared in the general direction of the offending organ.

"You must stop to see a friend of mine at the university, Michael Bakunin. He should be there soon, and I do not know when I will be back in the city. If you find him anywhere near the faculty of agriculture, then you must write to me immediately, as it would be the surest sign that hell has frozen over. If that is the case, I would rather spend my last days at home, in the serf-governed utopia that will surely result."

"Agriculture?" Turgenev asked quizzically.

"His reaction exactly. I was visiting when his father announced that Michael could go, and listen to the 'windbags', if he agreed to study agriculture as well. And now he is coming, so something has happened on that score."

"It sounds a fair trade."

"Not if Hegel is your life. He says he is coming, how he can afford it if he is not studying agriculture I do not know, and I would go to meet him myself were it not for this beastly cough. The doctors won't let me travel." He pushed away his nearly empty tumbler. "I've had about as much cure as my bladder can take. Would you care for a turn about the gardens?"

"Gladly. Here I thought I had sunk to the depths of boredom, actually chatting up a tourist, and I meet the Stankevich."

"I did not realise, outside the secret police, it was such an honour. And even then, I should have thought Herzen's circle preferred."

They walked in companionable silence for some time.

"It's depressing to see so many of us alone."

"I'm not alone," Stankevich replied. "Varenka is out today, in town, some form of shopping, she has led me to believe. She never really tells me anything. Probably because she is not really shopping."

"Your wife?"

"A friend. Michael's sister. One of Michael's sisters, I should say. She is married. Her husband is back in Russia, but she has her son with her. A bad marriage. She is better off away from him."

"Your mistress, then."

"Hardly!" Stankevich tried to argue, but he began coughing. Turgenev helped him to a bench, shocked at how easily he could feel the bones under the wool coat Stankevich wore, even in the warmth of the Italian May. He kept his arm around Stankevich's shoulders even after he stopped shaking.

"You should not be alone."

"I'm fine. As fine as anyone in my position can be. There has been a distinct improvement since coming here." The words sounded hollow to Turgenev's ear. "Let us continue."

They continued down the path. "The great thing about philosophy is that you know you will get on with a person because you understand each other."

"That sounds as if you believe there are different philosophies for different people. If you know a person's philosophy, you know the person. And that is absurd, because if that were the case, then philosophy would be meaningless."

"Of course. But you know you shall never get on with people who do not understand themselves and have got off on the wrong path. But as long as you understand that everything is rational, even the wrong path, well, you can't hate those people anymore because they are necessary to the dialectic of history. If you know you won't get on, then you actually will get on because you know what conflicts to avoid."

"Even Tsar Nicholas?"

"Even his uniqueness in the taxonomy of despotism."

"I'm not sure anymore." Stankevich sank to a bench in the summerhouse in the centre of the gardens. "The necessity of seemingly random action. Why Chaadaev is insane and Nadezhdin exiled but Belinsky carries on unharmed. You shouldn't need other people so badly in Hegel's philosophy. But I need someone so much. An answering echo to my inner life."

He looked very tired and very small and very frail to the tall sportsman. Stankevich half turned, and Turgenev took his chance. Their lips met with a sweet hesitance, but Stankevich followed when Turgenev pulled back. They were about to kiss again, but Stankevich fell coughing. Turgenev kept his arms around his friend. When he finally looked up, Stankevich's eyes were filled with tears. "The answering echo to my inner life. And in another bloody summerhouse!"

A woman came running down the path. "There you are!" she cried in Russian.

Stankevich tried to dry his tears. "Varenka. It's all right."

"It's not all right. You're worn out!" Taking notice of Turgenev, she switched to Italian. "Who are you?"

"Ivan Turgenev. A countryman in all senses," he replied in their own language.

"Varvara Bakunin. Nicholas needs his rest."

"Of course. It was a pleasure to meet both of you. I will see you both later?"

"Of course," Stankevich answered for them both, though he avoided looking at Turgenev.


	2. Nicholas

"How many minutes in a day?"

"Figure it yourself – sixty multiplied by twenty-four," Varenka answered tiredly. "You're supposed to be the genius."

"Forgive me," Stankevich muttered. "I've been tired of late."

"Cures are always tiring. Sometimes the cure for my marriage is worse than the disease. Before I came to Italy, I mean," she quickly corrected.

"One thousand, four hundred, and forty," Stankevich slowly pronounced.

"What?"

"Minutes in a day. Do you ever find that there are people in this world that you feel you've known already? That are so much a part of you that the moment you meet, you know you've found that answering echo of your inner life?"

"I married Dyakov – you'll have to ask someone else."

"It was like that with Liubov. Have you heard from her lately?"

Varenka merely shook her head, trying to appear to concentrate on the shirt she was mending.

"You would tell me if something had happened, wouldn't you?" he asked with a slight edge to his voice.

"Of course," she snapped. "I told you Michael was going to Berlin. I tell you everything I know."

He tried to shrug off her anger. "You are out of sorts today."

"So are you. What makes you so happy?"

"The answering echo of my inner life." It was surprisingly easy to return to the dream, despite the harshness of Varenka's voice.

"That's what you and Liuba called each other."

"I've found another. Isn't it curious we did not meet in Moscow? I should travel to Italy, and here I find a true Russian Hegelian."

"He told us himself he studied in Petersburg. You sound like a schoolboy in the throes of first passion. 'Answering echo of my inner life'," she mocked. "How can you dare to replace Liuba like that?"

"It is not replacement!" Stankevich answered defensively. "It is merely friendship! Really, Varenka. Ivan Turgenev as a sweetheart?" He started to laugh nervously but fell to coughing instead.

Like a clockwork figure, Varenka brought the basin so he could spit out the blood and a glass of water so he could rinse his mouth. She fluffed the pillows before he lay back again, all without expression. He did not even bother to thank her for the ministrations: it was the established rhythm of more than eighteen months.

When his breath returned, so did his train of thought. "Two thousand, eight hundred, and eighty minutes. That is how long I have known him. Read me the last letter."

"You know it by heart."

"Please, Varenka?"

"I have to finish this. Read it yourself."

"But when you read it, I picture Tatiana writing it."

A tap at the door forced Varenka to bite her tongue. "Ah, it's you. Good. Nicholas, Ivan Sergeyvich is here," she said sweetly, almost mockingly. "I'm going into town." She stuffed the shirt into her basket, grabbed up her reticule, and swept from the room, giving Stankevich a final glare as she made her departure.

"A pleasure to see you, Varvara Alexandrovna," Turgenev called after her, though she did not answer. "How are you?"

"I'm fine." Stankevich looked thoughtful. "I should like to go for a walk, I think."

"I should like that of all things."

"I would be grateful for the use of your arm."

"Gladly. Have you actually seen Rome, or have you merely spent some time in this sanitarium?"

"Varenka and I did a great deal of sight-seeing when we first came. That was some time ago. I tire too easily now."

"How long have you been here?"

"A year or so, I suppose. Varenka joined me in Berlin, but we came here not long after. She had talked of going elsewhere, but not a word in the past couple of days."

"You've certainly been here long enough. Any place populated entirely by tourists grows to be a bore very quickly. I intend to go back to Berlin fairly soon. I don't entirely have the luxury of floating around Europe as much as I'd like – I must take a degree, and thus I must return to Berlin."

"That is unfortunate," Stankevich replied sadly.

"You are moving on anyway, if Varvara Alexandrovna has her way."

"But not yet. Say you will stay longer. Please." He tried not to seem as if he were begging, but he feared he had failed miserably.

"I must return at the beginning of June."

"By which calendar?"

"The western."

"I do not think moving on will alleviate the boredom of this place. Varenka doesn't talk much anymore. I think she keeps things from me."

"Such as?"

"She goes shopping but never buys anything. I rarely see Sasha – her son. She reads letters from home to me but rarely lets me read them. She never brings up Liubov. I think my fiancée must be dead, but no one will tell me, and all I can do is play along like a good little invalid. How can I be happy if all I have around me are illusions? Something of real life is necessary. And without Liuba, all that is left in Russia is Belinsky. I couldn't borrow enough from my father to pay for Varenka's passage to Berlin, so I cannot bring Belinsky here. Yet even with my love for him, the longer I stay in the west, the less desire I have to ever return to Russia. There's no point in it."

"How does Varvara Alexandrovna feel?"

Stankevich sighed. "We don't talk. And how can I admit to her that I am certain of the worst? She hasn't lied to me, I don't think. Tatiana writes the letters with very bland news of Liubov. Liuba was too weak to write for a long time. With Michael's debts and three younger sons to set up in life, the Bakunins couldn't afford to send her to the Caucasus, much less to Italy. Varenka sold her wedding gifts and borrowed from her husband in order to come. My father would not agree to the marriage with us both in this state. I thought if I could just get better, rather than worse, not even necessarily cured, that I could go back and convince my father of the appropriateness of the marriage. Then we could go wherever necessary for her. But I only got worse in Berlin, and Carlsbad did not help in the least, and now I am here, and it is too late, only no one will tell me. I'm an invalid, not an idiot."

"No one would dream of calling you an idiot."

"Then why does no one tell me anything? I'm sure I know it already, but I cannot manage to isolate the one reason from the potential reasons."

"Perhaps they fear you will give up if you know the whole truth."

"Give up?"

"Die. You said yourself there is no reason to return to Russia without the prospect of your fiancée."

"But why would I give up on life when there is the prospect of friends like you?"

"Two days ago that was not the case."

"I have never hung my entire life on the necessity of a single person or several persons. Philosophy has always been more important." Stankevich looked up into the younger man's eyes. "Even with Liuba. And especially with you."

"Why do you insist on that?"

"Varenka thinks I am in love with you. Her brother being what he is, I cannot say I am entirely surprised she would jump to that conclusion. But Michael is Michael."

"And Nicholas is Nicholas." Turgenev pulled him down onto a bench. "I never said I was in love with you."

"Nor I you." But Stankevich turned and kissed him tenderly. "I haven't the time left for love. And you are leaving me to go to Berlin, in any case."

"But a tender friendship is allowed."

"You are the only thing that seems real anymore. The most ludicrous inhabitant of this establishment, and you seem the most real."

"And your fiancée? What if she is not dead?"

"It is too late for us both. We have to stop being Hamlets."

"Accept the rationality of the objective world."

"Precisely."

Turgenev smiled and kissed him again.


	3. Varenka

"Is everything packed?" Varenka asked Nicholas without looking at him. "I've all of Sasha's things in his trunk, and I believe I have everything of mine."

"I've everything I brought here. Wasn't there another trunk when we came?" Nicholas sat down and began to cough with the exertion of packing the contents of their room.

"No," Varenka answered firmly. He didn't need to know how much she had pawned and outright sold just to maintain their presence in Rome. The impending journey to Florence had required the sale of that trunk, some commissioned embroidery, and the mending of every shirt in the villa, or so it seemed. She did not want to think how she was ever to get out of Florence should Nicholas die there. She poked further into the remaining trunk. "Have you got Tata's letters?"

"No." There was an odd tone in Nicholas' voice. Defiance?

"Why not? I haven't got them."

"I burned them."

"Whatever for?"

"When did Liuba die?"

"What? She's not dead," Varenka answered distractedly. She was never meant to be a nurse, why was she even here at all? I could wish you in hell, Michael, she thought.

"I may be a dying man, Varvara Alexandrovna, but I am not an imbecile." She had never heard such hardness in his voice, and it had been years since he had used such formal address with her.

"When we arrived in Carlsbad. The news followed us from Berlin." Varenka didn't dare look at him. She had sworn to Tatiana that she would not tell Nicholas. She had given up mourning her sister, just to avoid killing the man Liubov had loved so much, and yet when asked directly, she was too tired to bother keeping the secret.

"More than a year ago, then," he replied dully.

"Yes."

"Did you really think such news would kill me?"

"If you loved her, then what was left in the world for you without her? And if you didn't die of it, then she misplaced all her love, and I have misplaced my trust." She was crying now.

"Mama?" Sasha had come in unnoticed, peering at her around the open lid of the trunk.

"Oh, darling, I'm sorry." She pulled him into her arms.

"Ivan Sergeyvich brought me a kite!"

"Did he?" She looked up to find Turgenev. Quickly, she tried to brush away the tears on her cheeks. "That was kind of you, though it will get no use in Florence."

"But he will be glad of it should you follow the rest of Italy into the country in the full heat of summer. Sasha tells me you leave tomorrow."

"That is correct."

"Then at least I have caught you in time. I must take leave of you now."

"To Berlin already?" Nicholas asked, caught off guard.

"Already? I should have gone earlier. This place has done nothing for my bladder. I ought at least to have my education, if I cannot have my health."

What a rude thing to say in the presence of a dying man, Varenka thought. "Come for a walk with me, Sasha. Let the lovers have their goodbye in peace," she shot at Nicholas.

"What did you say to her?" she heard Turgenev quietly ask Nicholas as she left.

"We are going to play a little game," she whispered to Sasha. "You are going to stand here, quiet as a mouse, while I see that Ivan Sergeyvich does not harm Nicholas."

"But Ivan Sergeyvich is a nice man," Sasha complained.

"It is the nice men one must be most careful of." Creeping back to the door, Varenka saw them embrace. And kiss, as Russian men will do. And kiss as two lovers will do. She fell back to the wall, head in her hands, unable to stop the tears. She had only thought it a cruel joke, the way she had tried to make Nicholas see that his descriptions of his friend were the same as his descriptions of Liuba. But he had never kissed Liuba so frankly, of that she was certain. Varenka had never kissed her husband so frankly, and they had been married five years.

"Mama?"

"Shh, sweetheart." She tried to dry her eyes again, but her tears continued to flow. Sasha threw his arms around her waist, as high as he could reach. She absent-mindedly stroked his hair while she dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.

"Varvara Alexandrovna." Turgenev bowed to her. "Are you all right?"

"You, of all people, you dare to ask if I am all right?" She choked back her tears, determined to face him properly. "You, who come in here and tear up our lives, you ask if I am all right? Of course I am not all right. But I will be soon. I am glad you are going. Glad that our final night in Rome will not be spent in your company. Glad that Nicholas will see no more of you, you deceitful seducer!"

"Seducer?"

"Yes, seducer!" she snapped. "The answering echo of his inner life? Do you even know what it means?" She took his silence for denial. "Good. I'm glad there's one thing you haven't thoroughly sullied. Get out of here. Take your coach to the border. I'm glad I will never see you again!"

"I'm sorry to have offended you, Varvara Alexandrovna. I am terribly sorry that you see anything wrong in my friendship with Nicholas."

"Just go." She returned to the room, Sasha trailing unnoticed behind her. "And you! You are as bad as he! Do you even know what you have done? Or do you know and not even care! I have given all of my life to you and Liuba, Nicholas. All of it." She forged ahead through the sobs that threatened to cut her off. "I married Dyakov so Liuba would be free for you. I left him and came to you because I thought it best for her. I've sold everything I've ever had just to stay with you. I have tried to keep you alive because I can do nothing else for Liuba now. And what do you give me in return? You betray her, you betray me, and you betray yourself. Ivan Sergeyvich has been nothing but a menace since he arrived. I have held my peace for three weeks while you walked with him, talked with him, made love with him! Why do you do this to us?"

"You betrayed me," Nicholas replied bitingly. "I loved her. She should have been my wife. And you did not tell me until today that she had died."

"You took up with that man before you ever knew!"

"I knew someone was telling me lies. Possibly both you and Tatiana. No more details of importance. 'Father might sell the forest, but he hasn't decided yet.' 'Michael is trying to go to Berlin, but he doesn't yet know when he can leave' – or, more truthfully, Michael has not yet found a new friend both rich and stupid enough to pay, since hell would have to freeze over before he would bow to your father and study agriculture. Did you really think I wouldn't notice that suddenly all you said of Liuba was 'Liuba is feeling rather better' or something equally bland? I may be dying, but I am not a child."

"I never said you were!"

"Sasha has more freedom than I do! He knows more truth than I do. I'm treated as if I were a baby, with no understanding. I taught Michael all the philosophy he barely managed to impart to you, and I should think that alone would grant me rather more benefit than you are inclined to give."

"Benefit? You killed my sister!"

"She was ill! She would have died had she married that horrid cavalry officer your father tried to marry her to. And been more miserable in her life before that death!" He began to cough, but she ignored it in her anger.

"Oh, and you know everything about women, just because you once kissed some naked breasts in a summerhouse! Yes, Michael told everyone, but you were the fool who told him in the first place, so don't wince. It should be obvious that Michael can't keep a secret if his life depends on it. You should have been with her. You should have given her some reason to hold on."

"Blame whomever you like, but it is not my fault. Can't you understand that I loved her?"

"I thought you did, but I saw you kiss him! You never kissed Liuba like that, did you?"

"Not precisely. I once kissed your brother," he added defiantly. "You wouldn't understand." Now he was condescending rather than pleading. "There are different kinds of love. There are different kinds of desire. I can love Turgenev, and I can love your brother, but in a different way to how I loved Liuba."

"You kissed him like a lover."

"How would you know?" Nicholas snapped.

She turned away as if he had slapped her across the face. "I gave everything to you, for Liuba's sake, yet longer I stay here, the more I think I might actually love Dyakov. He let me go. He gave me money. He wants me to be happy. What have you given me? Exile. A burden. Loneliness beyond imagination. What can I do at the end? I cannot afford to either stay or leave. And now you throw failure in my face. Have you no other weapons left? Or is this all you seek, to drag me through the dirt?"

"I never meant – I mean – I've lived so long in my head. I forget."

"You forget that everyone else has feelings? Is that where all this German philosophy has brought us?"

"Yes. No. I can't – we've both been wrong. You've been trapped in Kant and I've ignored the whole point of Hegel. Reality. Something of the real world is necessary for happiness. With me in Berlin and Liuba at home or dead, she wasn't real. You hate Dyakov when you are with him, but in his absence, you love him. We've been ignoring reality, living in our dream worlds. But Turgenev is real. He understands me, and I understand him. Yes, I love him. And I love Michael. Not in the same way I loved Liubov. Not in the same way as each other. I cannot imagine marrying Turgenev. But he is real. I needed him. And so did you, even if you don't acknowledge it."

"I've been plenty aware of reality. I'm trying to raise a son, support both of us, and look after you. You have the luxury of being an invalid. I don't. All I have is reality, and yes, everything I have had to do is rational. The only thing irrational is that you have taken to calling Ivan Sergeyvich the answering echo of your inner life! It's not right!"

"But it's true. In Liuba's absence. Why can there only be one of anything, ever? Why cannot I have friends?" She had no answer. He pressed on. "These past weeks have been good for me, Varenka. I feel better, really. I want to see Florence. It won't be expensive, I promise. I've enough money for all three of us right now."

"You and your thousands of souls. I daresay I stand a better chance of salvation," she said sarcastically.

"I'm sure you do," he replied evenly.

"Are you mocking me?"

"No. I swear it. Why must we argue? We're going to Florence tomorrow. You have me to yourself again. Is that it? Are you jealous of Turgenev?"

She was taken aback by how patently wrong he was. "Jealous? Of that fop? I'm not in love with you. The only reason I'm still here is for Liuba. Why must you and he make that so difficult?"

"I didn't mean to. I didn't think. I will always love Liuba. I'm sorry. I am glad you are here. Truly."

Varenka was unsure if she ought to believe him. But he did look sorry, she thought, sorry like a scolded child. She started to put out her hand to him. So much emotion today was really not good for him. How selfish she had been!

"Mama?" Sasha whined, interrupting her.

"Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry." She pulled her son to her in place of her patient. "Look at the time. You must be starving. Nicholas and I have made up. Let's find some dinner."

I'm still going to kill Michael the first chance I get, Varenka thought as she led her charges to the dining room.


End file.
